The Hollow City

by Dan Wells

  The speakers beep again, startling us, but it’s only a small chime. An email alert. She crouches in front of the desk and points at the corner of the screen. “She just responded. Police are on their way.”

  “Give me the address.”

  “You don’t have time—”

  “I have to know where I’m going. Give me the address where I was found, and the address for ChemCom.”

  “ChemCom?”

  “They’re a part of this too.”

  She shakes her head. “They had a victim there, but I don’t think the company’s involved—they were being robbed.”

  “Robbed?”

  “On a pretty regular basis; I’ve got it in my notes.” She clicks on a file and scans down the document. “Formamide and potassium hydroxide. The company’s beside the point—you need to find whoever was stealing those chemicals.”

  “Why are those chemicals important?”

  “Because you can combine them to make cyanide.”

  “No.” I shake my head, pacing the small office. “This is too much. It’s the Children of the Earth, it’s got to be. We’ve got to stop them.”

  She clicks open another document, scrolling through page after page of notes. “Here it is.” She fumbles on the desk for a pen, writing on the back of an envelope. “The police found you in an overpass, under I-34, but you ran and they chased you to an abandoned house at this address. Maybe you can hide out there again.”

  “Wait.” My heart seems to stop, my senses tunneled in on a single phrase. “What do you mean, an abandoned house?”

  “It’s a whole abandoned development.” She hands me the paper: STONEBRIDGE COURT. “The owner went bankrupt in the recession, and the houses were never finished.”

  I feel pale and weak. “It’s empty?”

  “Yeah,” she says, staring at me in worry, “just … rows and rows of empty houses. Why, does that mean something?”

  Siren’s wail in the distance, and our heads snap up to listen.

  “I need to get there now.”

  “They’re almost here,” she says. “I don’t know if you can get away.”

  “Does this window open?”

  She rushes to the blinds, turning off the light before pulling them open. “It’s a long drop; this is the second floor.” She wrenches open the window. “Be careful.”

  “Don’t tell them where I’m going.”

  “I won’t.”

  I climb through the window and leap out into the darkness.

  TWENTY-THREE

  THE HOLLOW CITY.

  There’s a chain-link fence along the outside and a sign: WELCOME TO STONEBRIDGE COURT. A suburban development, half-finished and abandoned. I ease the car slowly down the fence, watching the empty houses slip past me in the dark. There’s a way in—somehow I don’t just assume this, I know it, as clearly as if I’d been here before. I have been here before. Did I live here? Did I hide here? What will I find?

  I remember a deep pit. Did I fall into it? But the policemen said I fell out of a window.…

  There’s a break in the fence, a wide, empty street that leads into the vacant neighborhood beyond. I stare at it, irrationally terrified, but I summon my courage and turn in, moving without thinking. I belong here. Don’t I? A roll of chain link, once stretched across the road, is now rolled back, and I ease past it carefully; My headlights catch the first house in brilliant beams of light, a hollow shell covered in graffiti, a malevolent shroud of jagged, screaming words. The lights move past it and the house disappears again in darkness.

  I drive slowly, noting each empty house as I pass it. Two. Four. Ten. Twenty. Empty mailboxes stand like soldiers; empty windows stare like cadaverous eyes, black and dead until, here and there, my headlights catch one in the distance and shine back a bright flash of reflection. Most of the homes are finished, at least on the outside, but the lawns are bare dirt and the driveways are dotted with extra lumber or bags of cement. Branded labels mark each window like a pupil, giving each house a sly, sidelong gaze. They’re spying on each other.

  A furtive shadow appears and disappears around a corner. I’m not alone.

  I come to a cross street and pause, studying the house on the far corner—identical to the others, but different. This is where I turn right. It’s not a message but a memory, and when I turn I feel a sense of familiarity: this is the way. The next street sparks another memory—turn left—but each new moment of insight increases my unease. I shift in my seat, namelessly anxious. My path is accurate, but it isn’t right. I follow it anyway. The next intersection is a T, and I know with perfect clarity that I must go forward, off the street and between the houses. When I followed this path before, I was on foot. I pause, headlights shining on the hollow houses, then shake my head and turn. I’m safe in the car—I don’t know what’s out there, or what I’m going to find. I follow the streets around and behind, twisting and turning until I catch the path again, seizing on it like a psychic scent. This way. I follow it down another row of empty shells until my mind says stop, and the house beside me feels powerfully familiar. I’ve been here before. I used to live here.

  There’s a wide picture window in the front wall, about twelve feet off the ground. It is completely shattered.

  I stop the car, staring at the broken window. The bare dirt lawn is covered with footprints; most of the glass is gone, either cleaned up or stolen. I open the car and step out, locking it carefully behind me. The front door is framed by tattered yellow strips, a DO NOT CROSS police line long ago ripped away and now hanging limply by the sides. I touch the doorknob gingerly, half expecting an electric shock or a painful cell phone buzz, but nothing happens. The knob doesn’t turn but the door opens anyway, and I can see that the latch is broken. The space beyond is a small landing, with stairs leading up to the window or down into darkness.

  I step inside, moving around the door and the railings and the stairs by pure muscle memory, completely at home in a place I’ve never been. I climb the stairs and I know that Kelly was right—I did live here. I stare out of the broken window, looking across the vast field of dark and empty houses. This is where they caught up with me—I retreated here to hide, but they found me and I jumped out of this window, knocking myself unconscious. I step back from the soft square of moonlight on the floor. What else is in this house? Did I leave anything here?

  I walk through the kitchen, touching each hollow space as I pass: a hole in the counter for a stove, and near it a hole for a dishwasher. The cupboards have no doors. The fridge hookups hang limp and unused.

  Each room is empty, but familiar, and as I explore I struggle to piece together not just my memories of the house but my memories of the two weeks I spent here. This is what Dr. Vanek worked so hard to help me remember—or at least this was part of it. I walk through unfinished doorways, desperate to remember more.

  There is a dark hole in a bedroom wall, with a jagged, exploded edge, but when I get closer I see it’s not a hole but a smear, old and brown, perhaps two feet wide and three feet tall. Blood, maybe? Whose? I don’t remember if it was here before or not. Did I hurt a cop? Did I hurt someone else?

  If I keep looking long enough, will I find more Red Line victims buried in the floor?

  I head downstairs to search the basement, finding most of the rooms unfinished—bare Sheetrock in some places, exposed cement in others, lined and fractured by a latticed wooden frame. I comb each room for clues, terrified but finding nothing. The light is too dark, nearly primordial; I’m searching by touch more than anything else. There’s nothing out of place, and the fact that I know that is the most terrifying thing of all. In the final bedroom—my room, I know—I find a damp, ratty blanket and a small cardboard box. Perched on top is an old corded phone, its thin cord trailing into the closet.

  I know the phone works; this is not a guess but a fact. I pick it up, hear a dial tone, and set it back down. Why does an empty house have a phone line? It doesn’t have electricity, it doesn’t have wate
r—it doesn’t even have sinks—but the phone line works perfectly, the power safely shielded in wires instead of broadcast through the air. It’s almost too good to be true—the perfect hideout for a homeless man with a crippling physical reaction to electromagnetic fields. Where else in the city could I find a place so sheltered, so familiar, yet so distant from any type of signal? There’s no civilization for thousands of feet in every direction: no cell phones, no radios, no microwaves, no wireless Internet. No people, faced or faceless. Living here I would have been free from everything that terrified me, yet retaining access to basic amenities like shelter and communication. Who set that up? Who installed the phone line?

  Who maintained it?

  Electricity could be stolen, leeched from an overhead power line, but a phone would be impossible without service; the phone needs a specific ID, known and maintained by the phone company, or it would be impossible to connect any calls. Even the dial tone would be impossible. I move the phone and open the box beneath, hoping for some kind of clue, but it’s empty. I stare at the phone in the dark. It’s my link to the truth—whoever set it up is a part of this, and they set it up for me. Were They using it to watch me? Was I using it to call Them, or someone else? Who would I even call? Not the police, not my job, certainly not my father. I probably called Lucy, but I didn’t need a working phone for that. Maybe I never used the phone at all.

  Ring!

  I stare at the phone, dull and rounded in the dark room. Who will I hear? What will it mean?

  Ring!

  It doesn’t matter who it is; this is why I’m here. This is everything I’ve been trying to do. This phone.

  Ring!

  I pick it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Michael, thank goodness you’re there. We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  I stare at the phone in shock, my jaw hanging open, then slowly put it back to my ear. “Dr. Vanek?”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  DR. VANEK’S VOICE IS URGENT and agitated. “I didn’t know if you’d find the house or not; I didn’t think your memory had come back yet. Stay hidden, I’ll be right there.”

  “Wait, wait,” I say quickly, my mind still trying to catch up. “What house is this? How did you know I’d be here?”

  “I told you to go there.”

  “No, I mean you: how did you know I’d be in this house? How do you even know the phone number?”

  “Michael,” he says, then stops. “Are you saying…” He stops again. “Are you saying you still don’t remember?”

  “Remember what?”

  “Remember everything!” he shouts. “The house, the signals, the Faceless Men. How did you find the house if you don’t remember?”

  “I got it from the reporter.”

  “I thought she wouldn’t talk to you. I need you to figure this out on your own, Michael, that’s why I wouldn’t help you.”

  “I convinced her,” I say, trying to think—trying to force myself to figure this out. “What are you talking about? What’s going on?”

  “You really don’t remember anything, do you?” He grunts. “No wonder you attacked Nikolai.”

  “Nikolai?” I frown, then nod as recognition dawns. “You mean Nick the night janitor?”

  “He was trying to help you!”

  “He was one of Them, Vanek! He didn’t have a face!”

  “And in your idiot paranoia you assumed that meant he was evil. He was trying to help you!”

  “He attacked me.”

  “Did he?” asks Vanek. “Did he pull out a gun, or a knife, or a vicious, killer cell phone? Did he punch you or kick you?”

  “He ran straight at me.”

  “At you or toward you? There’s a big difference.”

  “I…” My mouth moves mechanically, searching for words. “I…” I clench my teeth, determined not to let him cloud the facts. “He was trying to kill me.”

  “He was trying to rescue you,” says Vanek, “though he was apparently too much of an idiot to pull it off.”

  “Nobody rescued me,” I say. “I escaped—I saw him with no face and I ran.”

  “And I suppose you think you did it all on your own.”

  “Nobody else was there!”

  “Exactly,” he says. “That didn’t seem odd to you? How long were you there, moving his body and stealing his clothes, and nobody walked in on you? Where was the guard? Where were the security cameras? Even the night nurse was unconscious!”

  “That was…” I don’t know what it was.

  “Nikolai and the others prepared the way to help you escape the hospital,” says Vanek, “but you escaped from everyone and now you’re loose. And apparently very dangerous.”

  “He didn’t help me,” I say firmly. “I don’t know where the guard was, but there were still people there—the nurse was still there.”

  “Which is probably why Nick ran toward you—to keep you from shouting and attracting her attention. How were we supposed to know you’d kill him first? We thought you’d remembered!”

  “But … why would the Faceless Men be trying to help me?”

  “Think, Michael! Why can you see the Faceless Men and no one else can? Why did the FBI try to interrogate you?”

  “He wasn’t interrogating me, he was … asking me questions. It’s different.”

  “Why did the doctor give you so many pills?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why did they try to give you an MRI every time you got too close to the truth?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Come on, Michael, put it all together! The Faceless Men are helping you because you’re one of them.”

  I stagger back, stumbling over the base of the phone. “That’s not true.”

  “Dammit, Michael, you have to remember this!”

  It can’t be true—it can’t be true. I look around, as if the walls hold some kind of answer or escape, but there’s nothing; just walls, closing me in, trapping me. I feel like I can’t breathe, like my lungs are being squeezed to nothing inside my chest. I back up again, pulling the phone farther, and it drags the cord out of the dark hole of the closet.

  It’s not connected to anything.

  “Michael,” says Vanek calmly, “stay where you are—I’m coming right over. I’m sorry you had to hear it this way, but we thought you already knew—we thought you’d remembered. How did you find the house if you couldn’t remember?”

  I pull on the cord, pulling and pulling until I hold the plug in my hand. It’s right there, just hanging in the air.

  “If you see anyone else without a face, Michael, please show some restraint. Don’t kill anyone!”

  “You’re not real.”

  “Of course I’m real.”

  “This phone’s not plugged in,” I say, walking to the open closet and feeling in the dark for a phone jack. There’s nothing there—it’s not connected to anything, and it never was. “This phone doesn’t work, which means this entire thing is all in my head.” I stand up. “You’re a hallucination.”

  “Just because I’m in your head doesn’t mean I’m not real—”

  I drop the phone and run outside; the night is clear and cold, the stars shining faintly through a choking haze of city light. I race to my car, unlocking it in a rush, running in a blind panic. I shove the key into the ignition; the engine roars to life, crackling my feet with its magnetics. My father’s cell phone rings and I shout, startled. I hold up my hands to ward off the pain but there’s none; the signal doesn’t hurt. The phone has no batteries.

  Vanek’s calling me back.

  The phone rings again, loud and strident, and I throw it out the window. I don’t care if Vanek still wants to talk: I’m not listening.

  I get lost on the way out of the empty neigborhood, just for a minute, but soon I find the exit and pull out onto the street, following the signs for Highway 34. I need to get out of here—I need to go and never come back. I take another Klonopin, just in case. I need somet
hing stronger—something to get rid of the hallucinations forever. The freeway ramp curves up and away from the street and I follow it, the city spreading out below me like a sky full of shadows, the stars below brighter than the ones above.

  “I don’t have to use the phone, you know,” says Vanek. He’s sitting in the passenger seat, right next to me, and I almost lose control of the car. I swerve back into the slow lane, my hands gripping the wheel in terror.

  “Go away! You’re not real!”

  “As I was trying to tell you, Michael, just because I’m in your head doesn’t mean I’m not real.”

  “Lucy said the same thing.”

  His voice is hard. “Lucy can fend for herself: she’s a pure delusion, and a flimsy, sophomoric one at that. I’m real.”

  “You’re not real.”

  “Stop saying that!” he roars. “I’ve been in your imbecile head for years, for your entire life, and as useless as that life is I’m not going to let you throw it away. I’m going to make something out of you if it kills us both.”

  “Make something? Make what?”

  “Make what?” He throws up his hands. “What do you think? I’m going to make me, of course. You’re a pathetic waste, Michael: a perfect, healthy body wrapped around a mind too broken to make any worthwhile use of it. I, on the other hand, am a brilliant mind with no body at all. Think what I could do with yours.”

  “That’s…” I can feel myself trembling, my chest and my arms vibrating so strongly it’s like the tardive dyskinesia all over again. Displaced by my own mind. “That’s not possible.”

  “The greatest obstacle to any invading force is the outer wall,” says Vanek lowly. “You either batter it down or you wait it out in an endless siege, but I’m already inside; I’m already past the wall and running through the streets, burning and slaughtering as I go. The only thing standing between me and you is your mind, Michael, and quite frankly it’s not up to the task. It’s weak and it’s helpless—it can’t even tell the difference between the truth and its own lies. There will be no reinforcements, Michael. There will be no cavalry to save the day. It’s just you and me.”